


Movement of the Stars

by doodle_muse



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, 50 Sentences, Angst, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Humor, Multi, Purple Prose, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-09
Updated: 2011-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-24 10:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodle_muse/pseuds/doodle_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts from the 1sentence challenge community over at LiveJournal--this is essentially 50 1-sentence vignettes exploring the emotions and actions of every Mass Effect character I felt comfortable writing. Spans a good chunk of the ME timeline, so of course there are spoilers (especially ME2).</p><p>Some FemShep/Thane, Miranda/Jacob, Gabby/Ken, and a whole lot of BFF!Garrus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movement of the Stars

#01 – Motion

As the ship thrums into life all around her, Shepard revels in the subtle sense of motion; for a moment, she understands the movement of the stars.

 

#02 – Cool

Jacob feels the gel pack settle onto his burning forehead, and when he looks up and sees Miranda’s face, not Chakwas’, all he can do is smile.

 

#03 – Young

Lynne Shepard is shoved toward the alien, his four eyes narrowing in scrutiny as the human recruiter grunts, “She’s puny, but she’s got the temper of an angry varren—the Reds could use one like her.”

 

#04 – Last

Tali’s steps resonate throughout the suddenly quiet Flotilla, but she keeps her bright eyes trained on Shepard—she won’t look back, won’t give them that satisfaction.

 

#05 – Wrong

He said “She deserves a better man than I,” but as the words formed on his lips Jacob had to shove aside something that felt suspiciously like lying.

 

#06 – Gentle

She recalls the softness of their tiny features, the way she would trace foreheads, noses, cheeks—Samara relives those moments over and over, heart aching for the gentle things that blind chance stole away.

 

#07 – One

The Illusive Man is old enough to understand when one’s life purpose shows up on one’s doorstep, so to speak, and he knows that Shepard represents his greatest chance to mark the universe forever.

 

#08 – Thousand

At night sometimes Shepard can still hear them, thousands of voices crowding in her ears, whispering in a dead tongue and only one phrase that she can understand: _“You are our progeny!”_

 

#09 – King

“When I was a kid,” Shepard laughs, directing Thane’s attention to the crucifix at the back of the church, “we used to call Him ‘ _Se_ _ñ_ _or Delgado_.’”

 

#10 – Learn

Thane had not expected that in loving Shepard he would learn so much, but as they lie together once their passions are exhausted, he begins to understand that they are things his heart already knew.

 

#11 – Blur

Eyesight flickers out, ends—then sensations, gradual at first and growing in intensity until _pain pain pain—_ numbness and then sight, endless whiteness, glint of metal—slow, murky voices, flickers on her eyelids—and then a sudden jolt and “Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now, this facility is under attack!”

#12 – Wait

Gunshots, then the comm goes silent, and she forces herself to give him one second, two—“Right behind you, Shepard!”—she exhales.

 

#13 – Change

As the tattoo needle buzzes expertly over Shepard’s skin, Jack says, “You know, you’re not as big of an asshole as I thought you were gonna be.”

 

#14 – Command

Miranda Lawson understands that she is only nominally serving under Shepard, but when the other woman tells her, “I need you to lead the first fire team,” she’s surprised by the rush of pride she feels.

 

#15 – Hold

The only thing Tali can cling to after she finds her father cold and lifeless on the Alarei is the knowledge that the arms holding her tight also hold up the greatest hope for all life in the universe. 

 

#16 – Need

She asks him to say it again, sight blurry with unspent emotion, and Jacob wraps his arms around her as he whispers, “You’re not perfect, Miranda.”

 

#17 – Vision

She was farsighted before Cerberus rebuilt her, and now her perfect eyesight is just one more reminder of how completely she has changed.

 

#18 – Attention

Shepard sprints into a byway and Thane follows, pressing her against the wall with his body to hide her—and she sighs happily, for once appreciative of how dogged the media crews are.

 

#19 – Soul

Joker leans forward until his helmet touches the _Normandy’s_ ice-rimmed hull, some part of him believing that there is a place in Heaven for the best of ships, and she is there among them.

 

#20 – Picture

Kelly’s taken snapshots of almost everybody on the crew out of habit, but she can’t bear to compile them in a holo album; as time progresses the faces only grow darker, sadder.

 

#21 – Fool

Aria maintains a neutral smile as the volus splutters, “This betting pool for Shepard’s mission was a brilliant idea—I’m putting fifty thousand on the relay.”

 

#22 – Mad

Garrus is so indignant that the skin around his mandibles is turning as pink as his freshly-painted armor, but Tali just laughs and tells him, “That’s what you get for drawing a frowny face on my helmet.”

 

#23 – Child

Thane tries to hide the trembling in his limbs as he cradles the newborn, and Kolyat murmurs four words that are his redemption: “Her name is Irikah.”

 

#24 – Now

Zaeed’s a fighter, first and foremost, and in the rush of gunfire and biotic chaos he finds a kind of peace, an elemental balance that lives only in the moment.

 

#25 – Shadow

When Shepard and Garrus finally find time to catch up, neither one remarks that it’s only Garrus sharing stories—they don’t yet have the language to bridge the two dark years that stretch between them.

 

#26 – Goodbye

He still remembers the last thing she said to him, waving nonchalantly as she walked away from C-sec: “Be seeing you, Vakarian.”

 

#27 – Hide

Jacob and Kenneth can’t resist a few jabs at Shepard’s expense when they catch her buying makeup on the Citadel, and she smiles gamely, unwilling to tell them that she only wears it to cover up exhaustion.

 

#28 – Fortune

Thane traces lazy patterns on her stomach, and Shepard thinks about how every color on him is something precious—ruby, onyx, emerald.

 

#29 – Safe

Krogan have no need of security, they are walking mountains—but nonetheless Grunt feels a unique pleasure in his clan-name, a solidness of self that was not there before.

 

#30 – Ghost

Samara meditates to take herself away from what she’s living, the hurts that linger just beyond her eyelids, the guilt that justicars should never feel.

 

#31 – Book

Books are so rare that the only one Shepard owns was willed to her; an antique Bible, hardbound, with meticulous lettering on the inside cover spelling out _Ashley Williams – God Bless You on the Day of Your Confirmation._

 

#32 – Eye

In a rare moment of poetry Garrus likens Aria’s little roost above the writhing, heady crowd on Afterlife’s main floor to the eye of a storm.

 

#33 – Never

It takes him years to figure it out, but Kolyat eventually understands that he doesn’t have to forgive his father in order to love him.

 

#34 – Sing

When she’s stressed the hallucinations get stronger, and as the _Normandy_ speeds away from the Omega 4 Shepard is certain that there’s birdsong lingering behind Thane’s kisses.

 

#35 – Sudden

The holo goes dark and The Illusive Man smiles, takes a long drag of his cigarette and mutters, “Ahh, Shepard, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.”

 

#36 – Stop

She tries to inhale against the shattering, impossible cold, struggles, writhes—her body jerks and twitches, the stars reflecting across her horror-wide eyes as breath shudders, splutters—stops.

 

#37 – Time

Shepard hates how Thane greets her when she goes to talk to him these days; she wants to think that he is giving her his precious hours, not that she is taking them away.

 

#38 – Wash

Jacob spent nearly thirty minutes in the shower after he got back from Aeia, and when he finally emerged it was as though from a baptism, cleansed.

 

#39 – Torn

When she tells Garrus she’s sorry about his injury he grins and says, “If it means you’re still around to kick ass and take names, you can tear up the ligaments in my shoulder anytime.”

 

#40 – History

Shepard's fingers twitch as she examines the little packet red of sand, nearly overwhelmed by the urge to stick it in a pocket instead of turning it in as evidence.

 

#41 – Power

They never did restrain EDI’s control over the ship once they’d turned it over to her, and Joker finds the fact that she has _chosen_ to remain loyal more reassuring than any algorithm.

 

#42 – Bother

Jack wound up in Zaeed’s quarters most days, and while he complained loudly of her presence to anyone who’d listen, he understood her loneliness enough to let her stay.

 

#43 – God

Tali will never forget the day that she found Shepard, head bowed, begging for strength from a string of onyx beads strung through her fingers.

 

#44 – Wall

Gabby puts her hand to the wall beside her bunk, silently reciting exactly how many centimeters of metal and wires separate her from Kenneth until she falls asleep. 

 

#45 – Naked

It didn’t take her long to realize why she wanted so badly to strip off the Cerberus skin, the synthetic bone and vat-grown muscle tissue: she knows now that she will never feel naked again.

 

#46 – Drive

While Shepard was gone, Garrus still felt her at his side, pushing him to do better, fight harder, hold himself together in a universe that had lost its guiding star.

 

#47 – Harm

When first heard Hippocratic Oath, thought it naïve—now, occasionally envious of those who have not faced my choices, can follow maxim, blindly.

 

#48 – Precious

“Awwh,” Shepard coos, and Kolyat glares daggers at her, probably hoping the holo will burst into flames, “I had no idea you were so cute—like a little baby brussels sprout!”

 

#49 – Hunger

Shepard’s never told the reporters the real reason she joined up, but there are a few soldiers still alive who know that it was less about destiny and more about not starving.

 

#50 – Believe

She traces the perfect little pentagon on his forehead as he sleeps and whispers, “Thank you,” realizing that for the first time in a lifetime, she has no doubts at all.


End file.
